Do burying beetles (Coleoptera: Silphidae) prefer their food cooked?

The American burying beetle, Nicrophorus americanus, is an endangered beetle that uses vertebrate carrion for food and to rear offspring. A high concentration of its dwindling population is present in eastern Oklahoma at Camp Gruber, which is a military training facility located near Braggs, Oklahoma. Camp Gruber occupies about 230 km², and serves as a wildlife management area and training facility which includes live fire exercises.  As a result, both accidental and prescribed fires occur. To better understand how carrion beetles may be affected by fires which clear vegetation but also may kill and burn small vertebrates, previously frozen rats were either burned moderately or charred, and placed in pitfall traps (N = 28). Out of the 28 traps containing burned rats, ten of those rats were charred, while the remaining eighteen traps contained moderately burned rats. Traps with burned rates were set approximately 0.75 km from traps with unburned, bloated rats (N = 28). A total of 1,803 silphids were trapped belonging to 4 species.  Traps with control rats caught a mean (+ 1 SE) 3.79 + 0.8 American burying beetles per trap, while traps containing burned rats caught 3.11 + 0.73. In comparison to the control rats, burned rats attracted similar numbers of the other Nicrophorus, but less than a third of Necrodes surinamensis, a carrion feeding silphid. Animals killed during prairie fires are attractive to carrion beetles, but carcass suitability to rear brood has not yet been determined.